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(10/25/01 9:00am)
No longer does one select a pair of jeans from the rack for its crispness and depth of color. Gone are the days of chaffing one's way into the perfect fit and fade. Denim has lost its integrity. It is no longer work-wear or play-wear, but some hybrid form of ghetto-fantastic spastic and rodeo-girl rhinestone costume dressing. Here's what ruined jeans forever: the wash. The wash refers to the color, texture, a pre-wear fade. It's what makes a pair of jeans unique and/or trendy, and it ends up costing a lot! Money a customer of course spends in the interest of time. Now one needn't wash one's jeans once a week for two years to get that glorious softness in the knees and crotch, below the buttcheeks and at the hem! But is this really a good thing? People these days are choosing hipness of fade over perfection of fit. Agh! Not only has this new trend in superfabulosity made the jeans tradition obsolete, but it has also made asses look fat. Could there be a bigger sin? Well yes, peddling the Sevens, Juicys, Mavis, Buffalos and Frankie b.'s that have smudged the good names of Levis, Wrangler and Lee right off the denim map. But I would never ask Smith Bros to go to confession over the issue, because now even God is wearing Diesels.
(10/25/01 9:00am)
Where did you grow up?
(10/18/01 9:00am)
The only ugly thing about attending a classical music performance is that the
audience doesn't stop being human. As I listen to the cello--masterfully caressed
by Antonio Meneses--alternately moan and wail Copland's Vitebsk: Study on a
Jewish Theme, the audience coughs and sniffles, great wads of phlegm drawn
back into their ancient nasal passages. I want to poke their eyes out with a hat
pin. This music is supposed to be elevating! Perhaps the aged audience is
made uncomfortable by Copland's modern, discordant, unharmonious,
nerve-grating, syncopated perfection. In its superficial confusion of tone and
content this piece is unconsciously appropriate. It has a Chagall-ish
grotesquerie about it that puts today's social tensions into a gilded frame where
conflicts and unrest can come to life and interact under the guidance of a greater
force. The Vitebsk makes me hopeful. And then a hopeful silence is broken by
the first chords of Beethoven's Piano Trio No. 1 in E-flat Major, Op. 1 No.1. I say
to myself, "This is the drama I've been waiting for, the aural story that makes my
eyes water." I love Beethoven because his music is so subtly angry that
movements like the Adagio Cantabile feel ironic in the suspense of their gentle
singing cadences. Now I think, "A Clockwork Orange's battery is dead, time for
beauty again." Begone ye Philly aesthetic and be ye replaced by this--by
Beethoven. I wonder if the man who turns pages for the pianist Menahem
Pressler gets paid. Whatever. And now Brahms (Piano Trio No.1 in B Major, Op.
8), whom I've always associated with lullabyes, surprises me by being excitingly
full of mood: withdrawing yet unrelenting, delicate but stable. By the third
movement, heads have dropped to chests around me andÿthe audienceÿswells
in gentle waves of synchronized snores. AndÿI realize they're asleep because
Brahms has no rage in his machine. But they awaken for the vibrant, vibrating,
vital encore: Shostakovich. This was a fantastic break from my rock 'n' roll
existence, as it should be from yours.
(10/18/01 9:00am)
The Cave
(07/26/01 9:00am)
Never mind the Weather Channel. High school students enrolled in the Penn
Summer Science Academy had the chance to get up close and personal with
the people behind the weather.
(07/26/01 9:00am)
Everyone knows that if a woman remains true to herself she will get what she
needs -- especially in the bookstore -- unless you let a new trend in books
define what you need. Let's be honest. Most women want a wealthy, attractive
man to bond to, career success, weight loss and to live happily ever after. Right?
Well, yes, if you listen to the moral undercurrents of today's post-feminist
fiction.
